1. education

Improving the Economic and
Life Outcomes of At-Risk Youth
Robert Ivry and Fred Doolittle
MDRC
Spring 2003
MDRC Produced this Paper with
Support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Improving the Economic and
Life Outcomes of At-Risk Youth
Prepared by Robert Ivry and Fred Doolittle
MDRC
Introduction
This paper outlines ideas and strategies to engage alienated and disaffected young people
in activities designed to help them acquire skills, gain work experience, and improve their lives.
An ambitious goal motivates this work: to significantly increase the proportion of young people
who by the age of 25 have a high school diploma or postsecondary credential, are working in jobs
with career mobility opportunities, are involved in a stable relationship with another adult, and
are not involved in risk-taking behavior. The paper is based on lessons from three decades of
demonstrations and evaluations that have focused on at-risk youth. It presents ideas that government agencies and foundations may want to test through demonstrations aimed at filling important service and knowledge gaps. It also presents ideas about how to change the public discourse
about young people at risk and to strengthen the public will to capitalize on this population’s
strengths and potential. We recommend three program strategies all of which leverage youthserving institutions and existing funding streams and lay the groundwork for expanding programs
whose effectiveness has met high evaluation standards.
The underlying premise of the proposed strategy is that the mixed results from studies of
existing youth programs can be explained largely by the underenrollment of key subgroups of
young people, inconsistent participation among enrollees, and high rates of attrition. Many of the
young people who could benefit most from program services do not enroll at all, and a large proportion of those served do not participate long enough to earn education credentials, improve
their work readiness and life management skills, and acquire the technical skills needed to compete effectively in the job market. Therefore, a fundamental premise of this paper is how to increase youth engagement as a prerequisite to success. In crafting our recommendations, we draw
on existing research, the experience of youth programs that have had unusual success in attracting
and retaining enrollees, and insights from a “youth development” perspective and youth program
practitioners and young people themselves.
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Summary of the Recommendations
Goals and Framework for Action
•
Move beyond the modest efforts of the past. The ambition of this initiative
calls for helping strong programs reach and engage a harder-to-reach segment
of the youth population, testing new models that combine the best of what has
been learned, and addressing the critical service gaps of past programs.
•
Take account of the heterogeneity of the at-risk 16- to 24-year-old population in deciding where to target resources. At one end of the continuum are
young people whose tenacity, resiliency, and perseverance have enabled them to
succeed in school and the labor market. They are working in jobs with career
mobility or are enrolled in postsecondary education. At the other end are youth
living on the margins including young people who are incarcerated and disaffected “street youth” who survive through illicit activities such as gangs, prostitution, and drug trafficking. In between are those who are working but are stuck
in low-wage, dead-end jobs; those who are motivated enough to enroll in programs like YouthBuild and Conservation Corps; those who are “hanging out”
and are not involved in deviant behavior but are suspicious of programs; and
those suffering from depression, abuse, and other mental health problems.
•
Focus discussion and initiatives on the forward progress of at-risk young
people in the broad middle range of this continuum. This could encompass
assisting young low-wage workers to use postsecondary education as a pathway to better jobs; helping alienated and unmotivated young people enroll in
the strongest youth programs; and adding clinical or therapeutic components to
address reading and language difficulties, mental health problems, and conflict
management issues. We also suggest considering a preventive strategy aimed
at 12- to 16-year-old adolescents from at-risk families.
•
Maximizing youth engagement and participation. Youth strategies need to be
reformulated to ensure that they resonate with young people so there is demand
to get in and compelling reasons to stay long enough to benefit and achieve
benchmarks. Recognizing the need for eventual public support of successful approaches, we suggest that the strategy have as its centerpiece the recognition that
reciprocal obligation is needed ― a recognition similar to the one that resonated
with the public concerning welfare reform. This might entail guaranteeing young
people a “package” of opportunities that includes, among other things, the commitment of skilled and caring adults, education (including computer literacy),
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work or training, and mental health and drug abuse services provided that they
remain productively engaged and avoid (or make progress in avoiding) risktaking behaviors such as substance abuse and unprotected sex.
Design of the Initiative
•
Concentrate resources geographically to maximize impact. This would
most likely call for demonstrations in a small number of mid-size cities, lowincome neighborhoods in large cities, and impoverished rural communities.
•
Work with local officials to develop clear, compelling goals. For example, a
city might set as its goals a doubling of the number of out-of-school youth
aged 16 to 24 who earn high school diplomas or postsecondary credentials,
gain computer literacy skills, and find jobs and a halving of the number of outof-wedlock teen births and drug-related arrests.
•
Invest in changing youth policy and in the systems that deliver services.
This could begin with funding commitments from the mainstream government
systems that work with at-risk youth, paving the way for changes in youth policy and for the scaling-up of programs identified as most effective through rigorous evaluations.
•
Encourage and leverage the expansion of proven programs provided that
they strive to engage harder-to-reach segments of the at-risk youth population. Given the difficulty of the task, building on strengths is important.
•
Develop and test three new demonstration ideas to address unmet needs
and service gaps and increase knowledge about programs that work. The
demonstration ideas proposed here center on extending outreach, increasing
positive youth engagement, social integration, building skills, inculcating a
sense of belonging, and incorporating the elements that seem to drive the success of the most effective youth programs. These elements include a focus on
education, including computer literacy; paid work or training; the involvement
of caring and committed adults; special services for youth with language and
reading difficulties, mental health, or other special needs; resiliency skills; and
leadership development. Demonstration ideas need to focus on building social
networks as well as human capital, changing community norms, and giving
young people the leadership skills, self-esteem, and resiliency to derive the
best from and resist negative influences in their peer cultures. The demonstration ideas, which range from prevention strategies for younger at-risk adoles-
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cents to the creation of postsecondary opportunities for older youth, are described briefly below:
Prevention-oriented strategies to promote positive youth development.
Programs aimed at this goal would target adolescents aged 12 to 16 in
households receiving public assistance or who qualify for free school
lunches and would involve expanding programs like the Quantum Opportunity Program (QOP), the Children’s Aid Society (CAS)-Carrera Program, and Big Brothers/Big Sisters. QOP and CAS-Carrera are community-based after-school programs that offer young people financial incentives contingent on their participation and progress. They involve a variety
of youth development activities, including academic support, career
awareness, financial literacy, sports and cultural activities, community service, and — in the case of CAS-Carrera — family life and sex education.
The major funding streams that could be leveraged are Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in the Department of Health and Human
Services and 21st Century Schools in the Department of Education.
Alternative schools to help out-of-school youth earn academic skills and
secure employment. These programs would enhance or create communitybased alternative schools — especially in deeply impoverished neighborhoods — that engage 16- to 21-year-olds in core academic and computer
literacy classes that culminate in a high school diploma and/or a postsecondary certificate. They would also offer paid work experience and experiential training, life and resiliency skills, community mentors, and cultural
and recreational activities. Young people with limited English proficiency,
mental health and conflict resolution problems, or substance abuse problems would have access to special services. These schools would focus on
building academic and work readiness skills and self-esteem, increasing
job access, and changing community norms and peer cultures. Possible
prototypes for these alternative schools include Diploma Plus, the Philadelphia Twilight schools, YouthBuild, the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program, and the Center for Employment Training. The funding
streams that could be leveraged are No Child Left Behind (charters) TANF
(for young parents on welfare), child support (for noncustodial parents),
juvenile justice, foster care, the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), with
the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Postsecondary strategies to increase career mobility among young workers. These strategies would enable at-risk 18- to 24-year-olds to earn both
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a General Educational Development (GED) certificate and a community
college Associate’s degree or postsecondary certificate in a high-growth
industry that offers career mobility opportunities — such as information
technology, allied health, and financial services. The costs of tuition and
books would be covered by Pell grants or other student aid programs; students would receive stipends for participating in training or wages through
work-study in conjunction with training; and enhanced student services,
including counseling, life-management and resiliency skills, and jobplacement assistance would be available. Students would also have the
opportunity to pursue advanced certification or an Associate’s degree
while working, and even a Bachelor’s degree. Funds for such activities
could be leveraged from Carl Perkins Act funding, Pell grants, Workforce
Investment Act (WIA) funding, TRIO, FIPSE, Gear-Up, and other opportunities in the Higher Education Act.
Evaluations to build a record of effective approaches. Each of these demonstrations should be developed with a plan for research that will yield
solid evidence about the effectiveness of the approach tested. Typically,
this will involve the use of random assignment to study program impacts
and multiyear follow-up to assess longer-term program effects. Gathering
evidence on effective programs will support the broader goal of increasing
the public will to address the problems of at-risk youth, as discussed below.
Broadening Public Support and Building Capacity
•
Increase the public’s interest in the challenges facing at-risk youth and its willingness to devote resources to address them. Bold ideas need public support. A
new message regarding at-risk youth, along with new messengers, is needed.
The message, conveyed by top civic officials and leaders from private industry, the military, clergy, and popular entertainment, should focus on the assets
and potential of youth as a positive resource for strengthening communities
and improving society and build on the notion of reciprocal obligation.
•
Build the capacity of youth-serving organizations. Such efforts could include
staff development for youth professionals and supplementing or enhancing efforts that are already supported by the Department of Labor, the National
Youth Employment Coalition, and the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. A
particular focus of capacity-building could be on how to expand access to programs for harder-to-reach segments of the at-risk youth population and how to
stimulate their sustained, intense engagement in services.
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The remainder of this paper amplifies on these key recommendations, first by discussing
goals and objectives and reviewing the implications of what is known about the circumstances of
young people and the effectiveness of past and present youth programs. Then, focusing on the
need to increase engagement and participation in youth programs, it outlines a plan of action and
connects the proposed initiative to the need to change the public discourse about at-risk youth. The
paper concludes with suggested action steps.
Our recommendations are ambitious and challenging — daunting even — but they are
made with the intention to move boldly beyond the incrementalism of the past. If adopted, the
recommendations have the potential to transform youth policy. But like any daring undertaking,
the one we propose also entails major risks and the possibility of falling short of goals. If the policy, program, and funding communities proceed in this area, they should do so vigorously, making a sustained eight- to ten-year commitment; building a consortium of public and private funding; engaging other funding partners, public and private; and drawing on the intellectual capital
and practical wisdom of the country’s leading youth experts, who can serve as intermediaries,
advocates, advisors, program operators, and evaluators.
Goals and Objectives
The goal for this initiative is to substantially increase the proportion of at-risk 16- to 24year-olds who by age 25 have a high school diploma and postsecondary degree or certificate, are
employed in jobs with career mobility opportunities, involved in stable interpersonal relationships, and not engaged in risk-taking behaviors. This ambitious goal reinforces the need to move
beyond the incremental steps of many past demonstrations and focuses attention on the longerterm outcomes that matter. The effort is to help young people make a transition over several years
to a productive future.
With this overarching goal in mind, we propose that the design of the initiative be guided
by three types of objectives. First, a demonstration should start by concentrating its resources in a
limited number of large and mid-size cities and impoverished rural areas to maximize the potential of meeting community objectives. A community objective, for example, might be to double
the number of young people in the target group who obtain employment, earn a high school diploma or a postsecondary credential, and are computer-literate and to halve the number of out-ofwedlock pregnancies and births and drug-related crimes. Setting ambitious goals could mobilize
an entire city or community.
Second, it is important that youth service providers convey a clear, compelling message
about what young people can expect to receive from youth programs. There are no easy solutions
to complex problems, of course, but complicated program designs are actually hard to implement,
difficult to explain to policymakers, and hard to convey to prospective participants. We suggest
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that programs highlight the following outreach objectives when marketing their service to
young people: opportunities to work, earn a credential, become computer literate, and access
college. These are objectives that would resonate with young people.
Third, funding or systemic change objectives should center on the desire to improve existing public and private systems that serve at-risk youth. Potential sustainability and expansion
should be considered from the beginning. Except in cases where government agencies have been
involved, foundation-funded demonstrations have rarely been picked up by the mainstream funding sources, which suggests that it is important to get cooperation and funding commitments from
key federal agencies, namely, the Departments of Labor (WIA, including Youth Opportunity and
Job Corps), Health and Human Services (TANF, child support, foster care, and child care), Education (No Child Left Behind, 21st Century Schools, Pell, TRIO, Gear-Up, FIPSE, Carl Perkins,
adult education, charters, etc.), Defense (Youth ChalleNGe), and Justice (the National Institute of
Justice). In the current climate of devolution, it is essential to build similar relationships and secure comparable funding commitments from parallel agencies in the states and localities where
the target cities are located.
Knowledge-building can also produce systemic change. Third-party evaluations should
be strongly considered to discover whether the demonstration and intervention lead to higher outcomes (educational attainment, employment and earnings, etc.) than the target population would
achieve on its own. Presenting findings within a cost-benefit framework helps policymakers and
funders compare the results of an initiative to its costs and make more informed decisions. The
most reliable way to measure an intervention’s effects — or in the language of evaluations, its
impacts — usually involves random assignment. Under this research approach, programs and
researchers identify a group of potential participants larger than can actually be served and randomly assign some to a program group (with access to the services under study) or to a control
group (without access to these services but able to enroll in other youth programs in the community). The outcomes of the young people in the program group are then compared with those of
the randomly selected control group and differences over time can be attributed to the program.
Random assignment is feasible when the demand of eligible individuals to enroll in the program
exceeds capacity or the number of slots. It is also feasible when the target group for an intervention is larger than can be served and part of the intervention involves program staff reaching out
to youth and recruiting them to participate. In these situations, random assignment is a fair and
equitable way to allocate slots. Evidence from random assignment evaluations has had a powerful
influence on policymakers and officials in the Department of Health and Human Services in their
deliberations about welfare reform, in the Department of Labor with the steady expansions of Job
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Corps, and the Department of Education with the push for scientifically based studies of school
reforms in the context of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.1
The combination of early buy-in from government agencies and convincing research results could have a lasting impact on the future of youth policy and programs in this country and
on the systems that support them. It could also lead to the scaling-up of proven strategies.
Understanding At-Risk Youth
Thinking through solutions requires a thorough understanding of at-risk 16- to 24-yearolds, including their labor market participation patterns, changing demographic characteristics,
experiences in education and training programs, family structures, and peer cultures, as well as
the factors that help or hinder their positive development and constructive engagement in education, work, and training. Much has been written about the demographics and labor force participation of this population, and this paper will not recapitulate previous research. The following key
trends are, however, worth highlighting:
Labor Market Developments
•
Disadvantaged youth without a high school diploma (especially African
American men) did not fare well during the economic boom of the 1990s and
have been most vulnerable to layoffs during the recent economic downturn.
•
The earnings gap between school dropouts and young people with postsecondary credentials continues to increase due to both labor supply and demand. On the demand side, a growing proportion of jobs require some postsecondary training. On the supply side, the coming-of-age of the youngest
baby boomers, the growing number of immigrant youth, and the wave of
young drug offenders being released from prison have all swelled the ranks
of prospective young workers.
•
The education credential most frequently emphasized in youth programs, the
GED certificate, gives workers significantly more earning power if it is accompanied by some postsecondary training. Several studies have found that
having a GED alone produces only small improvements in earnings.
•
At-risk youth not only generally lack skills and credentials but are often not
part of social networks that provide the kind of access to jobs that middle-class
1
Some place-based or saturation programs cannot be evaluated through individual random assignment, but
other “cluster random assignment” techniques are possible in these settings.
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youth enjoy. Many low-income young people come from families and communities where relatively few adults work in the mainstream economy.
Personal Circumstances of At-Risk Youth
•
There has been a decline in marriage among at-risk youth over the past 25
years. Although the increase in out-of-wedlock pregnancies and births has leveled off, the rates are still high relative to those for the rest of the population.
•
A growing proportion of people in this population, especially young mothers
and juvenile offenders, have mental health problems.
•
Fueled in part by the entertainment industry, peer cultures exert a powerful influence on the lives of young at-risk youth and often clash with societal norms,
validating or even promoting antisocial behavior that compromises personal
and economic growth.
•
The at-risk youth population is diverse and dynamic. A small but significant
subgroup are disconnected — that is, not employed or in school or training and
not in a stable relationship — for extended periods between the ages of 16 and
24. This group is rarely reached by government and community-based education and training programs. Other young people at risk experience shorter
bouts of disconnectedness and persevere on their own. Youth policies and
strategies must be calibrated to accommodate those who are at various states of
readiness to move forward with their lives.
Reflecting on Past Research Lessons
The Evolving Research Record on Youth Programs
The evidence from evaluations of youth demonstrations is open to many competing interpretations. Some youth advocates and practitioners believe that they know what works and that
the solution rests in a stronger public sector commitment to youth policies and increased funding.
Some “hard-nosed” skeptics contend that little or nothing works and that the problems are beyond
the government’s ability to solve. While the evidence from rigorous random assignment evaluations on effective solutions is limited and generally mixed, we believe that the evolving research
findings offer grounds for optimism and further action.
Until recently, the findings from the methodologically strongest evaluations of youth
programs were discouraging. A series of evaluations conducted from the 1970s through the mid1990s of what were seen as some of the more promising youth programs — including Supported
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Work, JobStart, New Chance, and the Summer Training and Education Program (STEP) —
showed few or no long-term effects on a broad range of education and labor market outcomes.
The findings from the Job Training Partnership Act youth study, once one of the main funding
systems for this population, were equally discouraging.
However, several recent studies provide reasons for optimism and suggest some principles of good program design. A study of Job Corps, for example, corroborated the positive findings from an evaluation of the same program conducted 20 years earlier. Evaluations of the Urban Youth and Conservation Corps showed modest but positive impacts, especially for African
American males. The Center for Employment Training was the only Jobstart site that produced
significant employment and earnings effects. A comprehensive longitudinal study of Career
Academies (schools-within-schools organized around career themes) showed large and sustained
effects on employment and earnings. Studies of QOP and CAS-Carerra showed large favorable
impacts across a broad range of outcomes, including a drop in teen pregnancies and births. Further, a study of the mentoring program offered by Big Brothers/Big Sisters found improved
school performance and reduced substance abuse. Finally, although YouthBuild has not been
studied in a random assignment impact study, the program seems to have produced strong participation and high completion and job placement rates.
Implications for Youth Program Design
The mixed research results are not cause for paralysis or inaction. On the contrary, the
findings can help us identify program elements that are associated with success and understand
the reasons why some programs did not do better.
There are many plausible reasons why some of the best-designed programs failed to produce substantial impacts on youth outcomes. One possible explanation is that participants did not
stay in the programs long enough to benefit. Many practitioners and advocates therefore fault
youth programs for not being comprehensive and intensive enough. Yet, many of the most comprehensive, intensive programs have a hard time enrolling and retaining young people. Another
possible explanation is that the programs reached only the more motivated subgroup of the at-risk
population, who were likely to make it on their own without a program. This highlights the importance of youth engagement, that is, of coming up with policies and program strategies to reach
disconnected young people and to increase their positive, productive engagement.
What are some factors that might contribute to underenrollment and high attrition in
youth programs?
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Lack of Awareness or Interest
•
There appears to be a growing distrust and cynicism among young people
about programs and government bureaucracies. Many young people feel that
programs do not show them respect.
•
Prospective participants may not be aware of programs because of lack of clarity around goals, poor outreach, or ineffective marketing.
•
Young people may be deterred from applying and enrolling in programs because of an eligibility certification process that feels intrusive and intimidating
or requires information about family income and expenses that they do not
have.
•
Programs may not see it as within their purview to “sell” themselves to their
target population, to demonstrate their relevance, and to sustain enrollees’ interest. Some programs assume youth will come when they are “ready to
change,” while others must meet high performance standards and therefore
prefer to work with the most motivated participants.
Unmet Needs
•
Because of restrictions on federal funding streams, many programs do not offer paid work experience, stipends, or other financial incentives. Given the
economic realities faced by at-risk youth, it is difficult for human capital development programs to compete with the secondary labor market and the underground economy.
•
Some programs offer too narrow a slice of services, leaving young people’s
needs unmet or requiring them to enroll in multiple programs.
•
Some programs’ services are not accessible via public transportation or are not
offered at convenient hours for prospective enrollees, especially for those who
are already working and need to upgrade their skills.
•
Youth program workers, while committed and well intentioned, often do not
have the professional training to deal with language and literacy needs, mental
health issues, depression, conflict resolution, and other thorny problems.
•
Programs may not be responsive to labor market trends or employers’ needs.
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Obstacles Outside the Program
•
Youth must at times “go it alone” in programs because they receive little positive reinforcement from family members or community leaders and encounter
the negative influence or disapproving stance of peers and popular culture.
•
Personal and situational factors outside the program can interfere with sustained participation and progress. This could include breakdowns in housing or
child care arrangements; abusive partners, etc.
Other factors that might contribute to the success of youth programs with high enrollment and high retention levels can be discovered by examining the elements that the
more effective youth programs have in common and could potentially lead to a more comprehensive youth strategy.
A Feeling of Connection
•
Presence of caring, committed adults to provide moral and emotional support.
YouthBuild and CAS-Carrera do this through program staff, Career Academies through teachers, Big Brothers/Big Sisters through mentors, Conservation Corps through crew supervisors, and QOP through community-based case
managers.
•
Creation of a personal, family-like atmosphere, a sense of camaraderie with
peers and staff, and a sense of belonging.
•
Engagement of young people in sports, cultural pursuits, and other extracurricular activities. This is a feature of QOP, CAS-Carrera, and YouthBuild.
Meeting Needs
•
Opportunities for paid work and the use of financial incentives. YouthBuild
and Conservation Corps provide paid work experience, while QOP, CASCarrera, and Job Corps offer financial incentives. The Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects (YIEPP) Demonstration, the centerpiece of President
Jimmy Carter’s ambitious youth initiative, showed what a magnet the offer of
a job guarantee can be: 87 percent of all young people who were eligible for
the program (economically disadvantaged 16- to 19-year-olds in 17 cities, including Baltimore, Boston, and Detroit) applied for the program, and some
76,000 of them ended up working. This job creation strategy was so powerful
that it virtually eliminated the disparity between the employment rates of white
and African American youth.
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•
Work experience projects that are visible and provide a valued, needed service
to the community. YouthBuild participants renovate vacant residences, thus
increasing the supply of affordable housing. Conservation Corps and National
Guard Youth ChalleNGe members work on a variety of environmental, community service, and senior citizen projects. These projects enable young people
to make a contribution to their community and boost their sense of self-worth.
•
Experiential, hands-on education and training activities that combine teacherled and computer-assisted instruction, such as that provided by Job Corps, Focus Hope, and the Center for Employment Training (CET).
•
Support for personal growth through training in resiliency skills and opportunities for leadership development. YouthBuild’s governance structure gives participants opportunities to set and enforce policies, to participate in community
organization and political mobilization, and to become ambassadors for the
program. CAS-Carrera offers intensive life management skills classes, and
many National Guard Youth ChalleNGe programs include student leaders and
encourage participation in civic activities.
Acknowledging the Life Circumstances of At-Risk Youth
•
Program staff members who are accessible at all hours, willing to talk over issues outside the program, and are “there” for young people when and where
they have problems. Programs that make this commitment — even if participants’ problems cannot be addressed directly — help engage youth.
Promoting a Youth Participation Bargain
MDRC proposes that the youth-serving community take a page from the welfare reform
playbook by adapting the themes of reciprocal obligation and required participation. Participation
bargains can work through incentives, penalties, or a combination of the two. In the welfare context, recipients who fail to meet participation requirements are subject to reductions in their welfare grant; recipients who work, however, can supplement their income through the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and a partial grant supplement based on state income disregard rules as
well as qualify for work supports such as food stamps, transitional health insurance, and child
care subsidies.
Findings on the use of participation incentives in the youth field have been generally encouraging. The most ambitious example was YIEPP, in which economically disadvantaged 16- to
19-year-olds were guaranteed a job (part time during the school year and full time during the summer) on the condition that they stay in or return to school and meet school attendance and perform-13-
ance requirements. While the program did not improve education outcomes, its incentives were effective in attracting and engaging young people.
The Learning, Earning, and Parenting Program (LEAP), which began operating in Ohio
in the early 1990s, offered a bargain involving both incentives and penalties. Through the program, teen parents on welfare could receive an extra $62 a month in cash assistance by staying in
school and meeting attendance standards; teen parents who dropped out of school or failed to
meet the attendance requirement lost $62 a month. More participants earned the bonus than suffered the penalty, and LEAP had some positive overall effects on school attendance and, for some
subgroups, on earnings after high school.
QOP offered a financial incentive bargain. In addition to providing intensive case management, the program offered teenagers whose parents received welfare financial incentives contingent on their participation in after-school activities and meeting key benchmarks. QOP had
positive effects on a broad range of outcomes, from school completion and college enrollment to
pregnancy prevention.
There are two major reasons to consider creating participation incentives for at-risk
youth. First, as we have seen in welfare policy, the public generally approves of policies that reward people who are helping themselves. For example, there is broad-based public support for
the EITC, income supplements for welfare recipients who go to work, and transitional benefits
for former welfare recipients. The public is therefore likely to respond favorably to policies that
help young people who help themselves and avoid or reduce risk-taking behaviors. Second, the
cited examples of financial incentives have successfully addressed the biggest challenge faced by
youth programs, namely, maintaining high levels of engagement, participation, and retention.
Here are a few ways in which participation incentives could be incorporated into
youth policy:
•
Guarantee two years of tuition assistance to all children in households receiving TANF or children who qualify for the subsidized school lunch program —
provided that they graduate from high school with at least a C+ average or earn
a GED and avoid risk-taking behaviors. This policy could be incorporated as
part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, through Pell grants, or
by modifying the Hope Scholarship or Lifetime Learning Tax Credit.
•
Use a combination of financial incentives and penalties to induce teens in
families receiving welfare to stay in school, participate in after-school activities and community service, and avoid risk-taking behaviors such as drugtaking. This effort could be modeled on QOP and LEAP and could be incorporated as part of TANF reauthorization.
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•
Guarantee jobs (part time during the school year and full time during the summer) to at-risk 18- to 21-year-olds for up to two years provided that they participate for at least 20 hours a week in education activities leading to a high school
diploma, GED, or postsecondary credential and avoid risk-taking behaviors.
This initiative could be modeled on YIEPP, with subsidized jobs for young people who do not find them on their own. The focus would be on jobs that also
provide a community service, such as renovating vacant housing, working in
senior centers, improving public parks, and providing back-up for emergency
service workers. Additional efforts could be made to tailor the education programs to help interested young people meet the entry requirements for postsecondary education or the military. This strategy could be built into the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) or Carl Perkins funding.
Approaches to Increasing Engagement
The following are some insights that build on the best of what has been learned on ways
to increase youth engagement. We begin with ideas related to the initial stage of program operations: recruiting youth by selling the benefits of participation and lowering the financial, time, and
psychological costs of participating.
•
New ways should be developed to motivate youth to enroll in programs, get
them involved, and commit to personal development. The programs need to be
viewed as valuable by young people and to compete successfully with alternatives in the community such as jobs in the secondary labor market, the underground economy, drugs and gangs, or idleness. Focus groups may reveal more
about what galvanizes young people, but past studies indicate that they respond to opportunities to belong to a community, build their skills, hold paid
jobs, receive paid hands-on training in high-growth occupations, have contact
with caring adults, and express themselves through the arts and sports. Most
young people recognize the value of a high school diploma or GED, but many
have had negative experiences in school and second-chance programs. Thus,
education per se may not be a big draw, but the opportunity to learn how to use
computers could be enticing. Similarly, the prospect of learning life management and resiliency skills may not have much allure, but the opportunity to
open bank accounts and learn about money management could attract enrollees. Therefore, the programs may want to highlight components related to
jobs, training, computer and financial literacy, the arts, and recreation to recruit
young people. Later, as enrollees come to trust the program and to recognize
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the need for an education credential and conflict resolution skills, the program
could begin engaging them in activities related to these other areas.
•
Reaching disconnected youth ― who typically do not enroll in education and
training programs ― should be a priority and will require new forms of outreach and new sources of referrals ranging from faith-based organizations to
the foster care and juvenile justice systems. Recruiting this group may call for
a different way of conveying the goals of program participation. Young people
who are outside the mainstream may not be motivated solely by pragmatic
goals like attaining an education credential, learning new skills related to employment, or even getting a job. In addition, programs may have to identify
and acknowledge deeper transformational goals these young people have (for
instance, becoming someone who “matters” or combating social injustice) and
to devise ways to acknowledge these goals. YouthBuild, for example, helps
young people develop their sense of self-worth through community service
and acknowledges the effects of racism and class divisions while offering its
participants opportunities for leadership. Acknowledging deeper concerns and
goals may help participants persist in program activities. Further, if programs
want to move beyond serving young people who are willing and able at the
outset to comply with behavior requirements regarding drug use, language,
conflicts, and so on, they may find that setting “zero tolerance” rules excludes
or deters prospective participants whom they would wish to serve. Programs
may have to find new ways to set clear expectations regarding behavior while
setting benchmarks for enrollees who are not initially able to meet the expectations. Program operators report that striking the right balance on this issue is
one of the most difficult aspects of working with at-risk youth, and providing
guidance in this area will be an important part of program design.
•
Institutional sponsorship may also matter. Most young people, especially those
who are alienated from service networks, are leery about schools and government agencies. They may respond more positively to community-based organizations and community colleges.
•
Creating opportunities to belong and feel valued is important. This involves
designing program environments that provide structure and limits while also
facilitating personal growth and responsibility, self-expression, and mutual respect. Many program operators report that young people respond very favorably when they realize that staff are “there for them” when they are in need,
whether because of a family crisis, trouble with the law, or other difficulties.
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This level of commitment by staff can elicit a similar level of commitment to
the program on the part of participants.
•
Hours and location are important factors to consider. Most at-risk youth in urban areas rely on public transportation, so the programs need to be in accessible locations. Providing van service from major residential areas is another option. Hours are also important. Providing services in the afternoon and evenings, for example, may minimize job scheduling conflicts. Afternoon and
evening programming can also serve to keep young people from getting in
trouble, as has been shown in research conducted by Fight Crime: Invest in
Kids, an anticrime organization.
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Financial incentives are a key form of positive reinforcement that can help sustain program participation. Financial incentives can be tied to benchmarks
such as becoming drug- or alcohol-free; earning academic credentials; completing training, life-skill classes, or community service; and acquiring specific
competencies.
We also present ideas related to program services and administrative practices that seem
to help sustain participation.
•
The income safety net can supplement earnings from low-wage jobs and improve job retention. Many young low-wage workers do qualify for public supports such as food stamps, the EITC, health insurance, child care subsidies, and
so on. Helping young people access and receive these services is important.
•
Employers and trade associations can expose young people to a broad range of
career opportunities, better align their training with the labor market, and increase young people’s access to jobs.
•
Many young people have special needs such as limited English proficiency,
mental health problems, and conflict resolution issues. Addressing these needs
will require having clinical staff on site or providing program enrollees with
access to professional staff off site to address these problems.
•
Progress needs to be reinforced by family, peers, and the community. This is a
major challenge because community norms may not value the skills and behaviors young people are trying to adopt, and many at-risk youth come from
fragile families. This suggests the importance of developing place-based
strategies that focus on high-need communities within the targeted cities so
that a critical mass of young people are productively engaged and have the opportunity to develop positive social values and norms. It also highlights the
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importance of affording young people contact with caring adults who provide
guidance and moral support, reinforce progress, and help them recognize opportunities in the job market and beyond.
•
Sustaining engagement and minimizing periods of disconnectedness are important. Efforts aimed at this goal include rapidly placing young people who
are aging out of foster care or being released from prison in youth programs
and facilitating transfers from programs to jobs, postsecondary education, the
military, or other programs. This process is particularly important when programs draw on different agencies for services and youth must shift locations
— and come into contact with new staff — as they move through a sequence
of services. Past experience suggests that, in the absence of special efforts to
smooth the transition, many young people do not successfully make such transitions and stop participating.
Combining these elements should open up productive pathways for young people that are
more attractive than the status quo, reward their efforts and progress, create opportunities for belonging, foster positive social values and norms, and provide ongoing reinforcement and encouragement through caring adults. These interdependent factors must work in harmony if young
people are to succeed.
Demonstration Ideas
We recommend a demonstration centered on building a comprehensive youth strategy in a
group of cities striking a balance between scaling up proven and promising programs already underway within these cities and building new models that address unmet needs and fill critical service gaps. Thus, a starting point would be to determine the local presence of Conservation Corps,
YouthBuild, CET, Job Corps, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, QOP, CAS-Carrera, Youth ChalleNGe,
Youth Opportunities, and similar strong local organizations and these programs’ capacity to recruit
and serve young people who are more disconnected than those typically served. Efforts should be
made to finance the programs’ expansion through the mainstream systems, while other resources
could be used to invest in enhancements or variations of these models. For example, foundations
could help YouthBuild explore occupational areas other than construction and help Conservation
Corps strengthen its education component and its services connecting participants to jobs or further
training. Additional resources could also help interested young people meet the entry requirements
for postsecondary education or the military and provide programs with special funding to hire staff
clinically trained to serve youth with a history of substance abuse or depression.
We also recommend developing and testing the effectiveness of three new program models
and strategies that address the diverse needs of different age groups in the at-risk youth population
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and that incorporate the underlying principles previously discussed. The focus would be on the
broad middle range of at-risk youth; that is, it would exclude those who are making real progress on
their own and those who are completely disconnected or consumed with risk-taking behavior.
The first model would center on prevention-oriented strategies for younger adolescents
(age 12 to 16) in families that receive public assistance or are school lunch eligible. Young adolescents have low participation rates in after-school programs and are vulnerable to risk-taking
behaviors, especially during unsupervised after-school hours. New research findings also show
that the school performance of adolescents in families receiving welfare is adversely affected by
their parents’ participation in employment programs and suggests that this may be due in part to
their assuming additional responsibilities caring for younger siblings. The socio-demographic and
education characteristics of this population suggest that — in the absence of effective interventions
— the risk of future disconnectedness is high. We urge consideration of supporting preventive
strategies for this group in addition to ameliorative strategies for older youth.
The QOP, CAS-Carrera, and Big Brothers/Big Sisters afford the strongest evidence to date
on effective interventions for at-risk adolescents. These programs supply case management and
mentoring through caring adults and encourage positive engagement in after-school activities such
as sports and cultural pursuits, tutoring and academic support, and community service. Efforts
should also be made to ensure that the siblings of program enrollees have good, reliable child care.
QOP and CAS-Carrera offer financial incentives tied to successful participation and attainment of
benchmarks (such as staying in school and being promoted from one grade level to the next), and
CAS-Carrera offers family-life and sex education and workshops in career awareness and family
literacy. Both QOP and CAS-Carrera reduced teen pregnancies and births; QOP and Big Brothers/Big Sisters had a positive effect on a broad range of education outcomes; and Big Brothers/Big
Sisters lowered the incidence of smoking, substance abuse, and other risk-taking behaviors. Some
funding could be used to support the scaling-up of these models or to develop variations on their
approaches. Funds may be leveraged from TANF and 21st Century Schools.
Second, the youth-serving community could help 16- to 21-year-olds build the workrelated skills they need to find jobs by creating a network of community-based alternative
schools, including charters. These schools could provide core academic and computer-literacy
skills in conjunction with paid work or training, life and resiliency skills, mentors, and cultural
and recreational activities. Young people would be able to build skills through education and paid
work and training in a supportive, family-like atmosphere that fosters a sense of belonging and
promotes positive social values and norms. They could benefit from relationships with caring,
committed adults, such as program staff and mentors who provide guidance and moral support.
The combination of structure, support, and skill-building would increase young people’s selfefficacy, self-esteem, and sense of personal responsibility. Those with mental health and conflict
resolution issues would have the opportunity to benefit from clinical help in a nonstigmatized
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way. Some preliminary work would need to be done to investigate literacy programs that have
high participation and achievement rates for out-of-school youth. YouthBuild, Conservation
Corps, Diploma Plus, the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe, and the Twilight Schools in Philadelphia are possible prototypes. Creating new charter schools is another possibility. Further funds
could be leveraged from TANF (for young parents on welfare), HUD, child support (for noncustodial parents), juvenile justice, foster care, No Child Left Behind (for charters), and WIA.
A third model should be developed that creates opportunities for 18- to 24-year-olds to
earn postsecondary credentials as a pathway to better jobs with career mobility. The focus would
be on Associate’s degree and certificate-granting training programs in high-growth occupational
sectors — such as information technology, allied health, and financial services — with jobs paying between $25,000 and $50,000 a year. Community colleges are the logical institutional setting
for this model and may provide the type of stature and engagement that adult education programs
typically lack. They also provide an opportunity for young people to further their education by
transferring to four-year colleges or universities after earning an Associate’s degree. MDRC’s
Opening Doors project suggests that community colleges will need to enhance their mainstream
degree and certificate programs to be successful in enrolling and retaining this population. For
example, colleges will need to improve the connections between their developmental (remedial
and GED) and credit-granting programs to help students meet the entry requirements for occupational training. Students are likely to need more extensive student support services than are typically available on college campuses, including academic and tutorial support, financial aid counseling, personal counseling, peer support, job placement assistance, and access to specialized services for students with special needs. There may be advantages to enrolling cohorts of students
and having them take a core curriculum together during the first semester to build a supportive
peer group. In addition to Pell grants and student loans, new forms of financial aid should be considered for working students that would provide stipends to compensate for wages lost as a result
of school attendance. Students would have access to work-study positions, the earnings from
which would be disregarded for purposes of qualifying for Pell grants and other forms of student
aid. Possible prototypes include the learning communities for entering students at Kingsborough
Community College in Brooklyn, the Fast Track Program at Cabrillo Community College in Santa
Cruz, Westside Tech in Chicago, Access to Better Jobs at Sinclair Community College in Dayton,
the Essential Skills Program at Community College of Denver, and Portland Community College’s
Prep Alternative Programs.
There are community-based alternatives to postsecondary training that involve outstationing community college instructors or employer-based instructors at community organizations. The Information Technology Pathways program at Glide Church in San Francisco is one
example; another is Focus Hope in Detroit. Finally, there are employer-based training programs,
like the Cisco Academy, that prepare students for jobs as network troubleshooters and administrators through the A-Plus certification program. Funds could be leveraged through Carl Per-20-
kins, Pell, TRIO, Gear-Up, FIPSE, WIA, and the Higher Education Act to support this intervention strategy.
Changing the Public Will
Federal funding for at-risk youth has been reduced substantially over the past two decades, and youth policy has focused increasingly on enforcement and punishment (including
tougher crime laws, more prisons, and schooling requirements for children in families receiving
welfare) at the expense of human capital development.
Traditionally, the youth cause has been advanced by a small group of deeply committed
advocates and practitioners, but their influence and impact have been limited. Past arguments for
public investment in young people at risk — such as moral imperatives, guilt, and “pay now, or
pay later” — have not changed public opinion or swayed policymakers. Moreover, at-risk youth
are not viewed as a voting constituency, which further marginalizes them. A new message and
new messengers are needed. Two arguments for youth investment that may be more compelling
than those used in the past are the need for a productive, educated workforce and the benefits of
young people’s civic engagement. The former offers a business rationale for investing in young
people, while the latter highlights young people’s potential to strengthen communities (for example, through their work as YouthBuild participants and Conservation Corps members). Americorps and the USA Freedom Corps are other civic engagement strategies on which to build.
These two arguments for youth investment might be bolstered by the theme of reciprocal obligation between youth and programs, as outlined above.
New messengers with the stature to influence public opinion, change policy, and increase
funding for at-risk youth could catalyze the expansion of proven and promising programs like Job
Corps, YouthBuild, and Conservation Corps as well as spark local interest in testing new ideas. A
high-level bipartisan coalition of respected business leaders, clergy, military leaders, entertainers,
athletes, and current or former elected officials should be assembled to champion the cause. Given
the concentration of out-of-school, out-of-work youth in major cities, mayors also need to be mobilized. This means engaging the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities.
Coupling investment in new services with rigorous evaluation of their effectiveness could
also support the effort to change the public will, demonstrating that innovative funders of services
for youth are putting new approaches to the test with the goal of identifying successful approaches for broader replication.
We recognize that these ambitious suggestions may run counter to short-term budget
considerations and the current policy focus. But in essence, we are calling for a different focus,
developing through collaborative efforts a sustained effort designed explicitly to assemble the
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most promising practices and test them rigorously. It also explicitly argues for a longer-term
view of how to gauge success: supporting at-risk young people’s efforts to attain a stable and
productive life by the time they reach 25 years of age. We believe the young people involved
and the importance of the policy problems surrounding disconnected youth deserve such a
long-term commitment.
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